ABSTRACT
The Kurdish communities outside of Kurdistan increasingly constitute a global diaspora. The successive waves of Kurdish political refugees that have arrived in the Kurdish diaspora have significantly influenced the processes of community formation and social integration of the diaspora. Kurdish labour migrants from Turkey began arriving in Western Europe in the late 1950s and in larger numbers in the 1960s. In addition to family reunions and visiting students, an increasing number of Kurdish refugees and asylum seekers arrived in Europe. In most European countries, there is exact data available about the official number of migrants and refugees arriving in the country. The large numbers of Kurds in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium can also be attributed mainly to previous labour migration from Turkey. Thus, a clear majority of the Kurds in these countries originate from Turkey, and there is a rapidly growing second and third generation of Kurds.
